


Ravus joins the party.

by Jinglies



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Redemption, Snippets, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinglies/pseuds/Jinglies
Summary: Snapshots of Ravus Nox Flueret making better choices and good friends.





	Ravus joins the party.

Endgame spoilers/Lore Spoilers/Everyone Nice Lives AU.  
  
De-Anon from the FFXV KM - [Original Version](http://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3016.html?thread=2819272#cmt2819272)

 

\--

 

  
The first thing they'd asked Ravus to do was get a new phone. He'd disappeared without a trace but who knows if the Empire were tracking him with it.

  
Then he had to get rid his coat, Ignis wrinkling his nose at the way Ravus decided to fold it before they stowed it away in the Regalia.

  
Ravus’ threadbare cotton undershirt was a surprise and made Noct chuckle at the ragged left armhole; Gladio lent him his big green jacket.

Then they asked if he would take off the plating around his prosthetic. It was flashy, noisy and pointless and just screamed ‘Empire Official’ – Ignis sat him down on a bench around the side of the motel they intended on staying at that night.

 

"You don't have to take your arm off, just the crested plate, it's too obvious," Ignis said, a lot softer than Gladio had demanded a moment earlier. "We'll keep it in the car where it'll be safe, but it's just far too eye-catching.”

  
Ravus paused for a moment, looking over Ignis’ face.

“I’ll help you remove the plating, if you like?” Ignis’ pointed to a shiny buckle he saw under Ravus’ armpit.

“I’m the _soul_ of discretion.” Ignis said, voice the same if he were trying to get Noct to eat honeyed carrots.

Ravus nodded, scowling down at his lap as Ignis launched into working open the latches and belts keeping the heavy armour strapped to him.

"Oh neat, it's like, metal under there." Prompto said, snapping a picture of it before sitting down beside Ravus. "Cool."

  
"Perhaps we should ask before we do that, Prompto?" Ignis chided, turning the metal in his hands.

  
"You needn't worry, I'm don’t own the bench.” Ravus said with a raised brow at Ignis.

  
"I meant the photo."

  
"Ah."

  
\--

 

"Can't I sleep in your car?" Ravus grimaced, adjusting his borrowed t-shirt's collar. "This tent is an utterly untenable situation."

"No way," Noctis said, making a grand X with his arms. "Like you'd fit lying down in there anyway."

  
"I'm a perfectly acceptable height." Ravus frowned deeper, "Hardly a _monstrous_ height at any rate."

"Dude, _I_ can barely lie flat in the back and you're almost a _foot_ taller than me." Prompto said as he rolled over in the tent, pillow clutched to his chest. "Just lie down and sleep."

"We've got a long day tomorrow, so please, we all need to rest." Ignis said, removing his glasses. "A hunt, then we're going to see if we can find you a shirt that fits."

"I hardly think it's my fault that no one stocks a men's shirt in my size out here." Ravus sat heavily on the mat. "Surely there are hunters with my width and breadth."

"They get that stuff in town," Gladio supplied, muffled under his own arm. "I asked Cor who asked at Meldacio and Dave said there's a really cool surplus store under a record store, near the armory in Lestallum apparently."

"How convoluted." Ravus grimaced, sitting heavily as far as he could manage from the others.

"Don't wanna snuggle, Ravus?" Noctis pat the bedding near him, already in a slight tangle from Prompto's shifting. "Gets cold out here at night."

"I'll be fine over here." Ravus held in the hiss as he laid down a little too fast, but the thump made Prompto snicker.

 

\--

 

"So you just wake up, brush it back and let it do whatever?" Prompto asked, leaning over the seat. "You don't put _anything_ in your hair at all?"

  
Ravus sat in between a napping Noctis and a slightly amused looking Gladio ran a hand through his hair.

  
"This is just how it is," His white hair returned to its previous position. "Should I be doing something do it?"

  
"Not everyone spends twenty minutes in the morning trying to replicate a bird butt." Gladio reached up, trying to ruffle Prompto's hair, laughing as he got a chop to the inner elbow.

  
“It’s not fair!”

 

  
\--

 

"Ravus, would you mind giving me a hand over here?" Ignis asked sternly, peering around the open door's frame into the caravan bathroom where Ravus had been taking his sweet time on an extensive oral hygiene routine.

"Of course." Came Ravus’ cool reply.

There was a heavy, metallic clatter and a panicked scream from Prompto at the table as Ravus' arm flew through the caravan and landed on the dining table with a heavy clatter.

"Oh now, really?" Ignis very barely held in the temptation to stomp, and retrieved the lifeless metal arm. "This is _helping_?"

"You've all the hands I can spare at the moment," Ravus said. Noctis snorted loudly from the booth. "You can have the other in a minute."

 

\--

 

"Gallivanting around the countryside." Ravus muttered under his breath, _again_.

  
"Do speak up, Ravus, you're mumbling." Ignis called from behind him, a heavy basket filled with wild potatoes in his arm. "You made a choice, pick or peel and you chose pick."  
Ravus huffed, his forehead shining with sweat now and his white shirt smeared with fresh earth.

  
"Pick's the best one Iggy, get outside, sunshine, birds yelling." Prompto jogged up, putting another shirt-bucket full of potatoes into the basket. "And peeling _sucks_."

"Indeed it does." Ignis agreed, "So what part of feeding ourselves is frivolous, Ravus?"

"The part where his royal tradjesty needs to access the ancient power of his ancestors but he's choosing to peel potatoes because he didn't want to give up his hand of cards." Ravus wiped the sweat off his brow, getting a smear of dirt from his borrowed gardening gloves across his forehead. "Oh _perfect_."

"I think it's-white-not-gray here's had too much sun." Prompto gave Ravus' arm a pat, the pale skin now pink and radiating heat "Oh wow, he is burning for sure."

  
"We'll get some sun cream at the Coernix station while we sell some of the extra produce." Ignis smirked, watching Prompto press his fingers to Ravus' skin to watch it go from white to red again. "Perhaps we'll buy a hat as well."

 

\--

 

Gladio threatened to hold Ravus' hand if he wandered off in the market again.

  
"I didn't _wander off_." Ravus said doing as close to a pout as he could as an adult man nearly thirty. "I simply _stopped walking_."

  
"Same thing, get over here." Noctis gestured to the stairs he was on. "Get you something less conspicuous."

  
"I don't think it counts as being inconspicuous if you say the word conspicuous out-loud, bud." Prompto skipped down after Ravus, almost hitting his back. 

There was a little bell jingle as they opened the door to the blessedly air-conditioned little store.

The place was floor to ceiling stacked with second hand clothing, leather goods, old war memorabilia and, Lucian army surplus stock from a few years back. There was a very modest selection of imperial uniform goods on the furthest back wall, a sliver of the red banner forced to hang around town visible through a rack of heavy leather straps.

"Boys, you break it you buy it." The cashier said sternly, looking Noctis up and down. "No tomfoolery in here."

  
Gladio seemed to be magnetically drawn to the leather goods.

  
"I assure you there will be _none_." Ignis said, looking pointedly at Noctis before going straight to look at a wide selection of daggers in the glass case beside the register. "Are these from Galahd?"

  
Prompto and Noctis began flicking through t-shirts on a rack.

  
"Come try some of these." Prompto held a t-shirt up; it was a faded long sleeve shirt supporting the Lestallum team in the Cleigne women's recreational soccer league from fifteen years ago. "I kind of want this one though."

"It'd be nice jammies, that's for sure." Noctis said, feeling the well-worn fabric between his fingers. "Do they have any more like it?"

  
"A stretched out medium for the one-hundred and twenty-fifth Leide farmer's fair?" Prompto held up the poor stretched and sun-faded shirt so the happy little carrots and cabbages faced Noct.

"Hard Pass."

Ravus flicked through the massive array of shirts, most of them plain in the XXL section, a small victory.

  
However, there were several yellow shirts with a smiling sun and the word ‘smile’ in bold red letters.

  
He felt a light press against his back.

"This oughta fit you." Gladio said, holding a grey and black leather jacket against Ravus' back. "There's a couple bigger ones, but this should be nice and snug, looks cool too."

"Thank you, Gladiolus." Ravus took the jacket gently. "That's something I hadn't thought of."

  
Gladio waved it off, smiling and wandered over to Ignis now inspecting the handles of knives at the counter.

  
Noctis looked away for a moment then right back at Ravus, "Do you think this'd fit Iggy?"

It was a dark purple shirt with possibly the most bootlegged Kenny Crow a human could possibly create. 

“He _does_ like purple.” Prompto said, crossing his arms in thought.

  
Ravus winced and got back to searching, nothing had been a colour he liked, but he was approaching the white shirts now.

"I think I'd rather something still in white, I think it suits me." Ravus looked hard at one, seeing the deep-v and quickly moving the hanger to away.

"Good to know your colours dude." Prompto said, nodding. "Keep it simple."

"Oh my," Ravus extracted a shirt on a hanger, holding it up, and in distressed gold foil and faded black it read:

ORACLE ASCENSION  
Lady Lunafreya - 748

It had a large image of his sister, smiling serenely at age sixteen on the back.

  
"Oh man you gotta get that one." Prompto said, reaching for it but Ravus stepped back.

"When we catch up to her she'll get a real kick out of it." Noctis said, smiling. "She sent me one of those when they came out!"

"I remember the dining room table was covered with the different versions of these..." Ravus smiled a little. "She was so worried seeming too childish in the ones where she was grinning."

"Don't suppose the photos from that shoot still exist?" Noctis asked, leaning over Prompto's shoulder.

"There's a few, back in Tenebrae in very safe hands." Ravus's smile cracked wider down at the picture of his little sister. "I'll get a plain one as well, but this is rather amusing."

"Good call." Prompto nodded.

  
\--

  
Noctis decided that it was time for a break.

  
Ravus asked _what_ exactly he was taking a break _from_ and was swiftly given a smack across the back of his head from the Crown Prince of Lucis.

  
“Why are we stopping here?” Ravus asked, “Isn’t the camp site is back that way?”

  
Prompto sat on the pier they were stood on and took out his phone.

  
“How long are we to be out here?”

  
Gladio crossed his arms and leaned against the forgotten old tackle-shack behind them, pulling a magazine out of his jacket pocket.

  
Noctis stood at the end of the pier and make a soft noise of contentment before reaching into his armiger and pulling out a fishing rod.

  
“His Majesty is fishing, Ravus,” Ignis said, sitting gracefully on the wooden hand rail. He took a notebook from his breast pocket. “Get comfortable.”

  
Ravus sat heavily on the wooden planks near Prompto. “Perhaps now is the time to set up my new phone.”

  
“Unless you’ve decided to start knitting, that’s a pretty good idea.” Prompto said, ignoring the chunk of bait that flew past his head into the bushes.

  
\--

 

"What in all the god's heavenly names are we doing in the swamp _still_?" Ravus groaned, the mud at his feet making it hard to run.

"I need more ore." Noctis shouted back over the rain. "Just one more, then we can hand it back to Dino and spend the night at the Cradle, I swear."

"You said that _yesterday_!" Prompto wailed, "My feet hurt!"

"I believe he's right this time," Ignis said, wearing Ravus' new gas-station cap to keep the rain off his glasses. "The information's good, those rocks are certainly the kind where it's found, it's just a matter of time and the pay-off is massive."

"Better be for this slog through _hell_." Gladio said, picking up his pace to chase after Noctis who was warping over the mud.

"Ifrit," Ravus panted, "is said to have travelled through the underworld to save the goddess Eos." He huffed, a sick schlorp as he lifted his foot without his boot from the mud.

"How'd that end?" Prompto asked, clutching his shivering shoulders.

"Opinion-" Ravus said, shuddering as wetness suddenly soaking through his sock. "-Is _divided_."

 

\--

  
At first, he'd had the thought that the night at Galdin Quay would be nothing but more cards, king's knight, sharing a bed with Prompto kicking his shins in his sleep and a nice warm-enough shower.

However, he found himself melting into the soft duvet over the bed.

  
"This is _heavenly_." Ravus said, hat falling off.

"After we've all showered we'll get dinner." Ignis said, sitting by his legs on the bed. "Noctis and Prompto have taken _dibs_ on first however."

"Together?"

"We all do a lot of things together, I fear our close-quarters has given us rather… _loose_ ideas about privacy." Ignis adjusted his glasses, looking at Ravus' eyes go to the bathroom door when a muffled laugh and a shriek came from the occupied bathroom.

  
"I should go make sure they're not wasting soap, do you need anything?" He stood, taking a step to the bathroom, stopping when Ravus weakly raised a hand.

"Would you be so kind as to help me take my arm off when you return? I feel the energy draining from my body as I breathe." Ravus closed his eyes, cheeks going a little pink.

"Of course, won't be a moment." Ignis schooled his eyebrows back down the moment he felt them rise.

 

\--

 

"Luna." Ravus said, his voice soft. "Are you well?" He adjusted the phone by his ear, smiling at the slight chuckle she gave.

"Very well, how are you? Are you fitting in with your new friends?" She said smiling as Nyx across from her at the cramped dining table in their hotel room kissed her free hand.

Ravus was very thankful that he didn't put it on speaker right away.

"Well as can be expected, frankly I'm not sure I deserve it." He waved off Prompto who grabbed at his phone from where he was sitting with his dinner on the stone ground.

"You deserve kindness Ravus you've made the right choice." She set the phone on the table, pressing the speaker. "Nyx is here, he's recovering very well."

"Glad to hear you're well, Ravus." Nyx said, chin resting on his hand.

Noctis reached over Ravus' shoulder, tapping the button for speakerphone.  
"Hey Luna," He leaned on Ravus, "How's it going?"

"Hi!" Prompto said, clambering onto his knees to grip the arm of Ravus' chair.

"Hello Noctis, Prompto." Luna said with a laugh in her voice.

 

\--

 

Gladio, Ravus found, was hardly the brute he'd thought. They were a similar-enough heights, though the difference in constitution, width and strength he couldn't deny.

He often read in the back of the car, Ravus trying desperately not to peer into the book to see what it was, the title didn't look promising he didn't want to read that but what else was he to do on a long journey stuck in the middle seat?

Gladio had carried Prompto in his arms a half-mile back to camp when he'd sprained his ankle tripping over his own feet, only laughing once he'd wrapped the wound.

He'd even helped Ravus himself at the weapons-truck, teaching him about weight and balance of a sword, a neglected lesson in the Imperial Army's _gun_ training.

The car made a sudden stop, Ravus catching himself on the tail end of the center console, head nearly bashing into Prompto's.

Noctis jerked awake, stopping himself from tipping into the back of the seat in front of him.

"We've arrived, let's go make some money." Ignis stretched his arms over his head, sighing at the click his joints made.

It took them a good hour to get to the spot the group of beasts they were to take out.

"Alright, back to back as a group, don't let them in or it’ll be utter chaos." Ignis whispered, peering over a bush into the clearing. "Ravus take up between Gladio and I."

Ravus nodded, a little dumbly.

"Pay attention, grumpy." Gladio clapped him hard on the back, pulling him to stand.

Ravus however, could barely keep his eyes fixed on a single target, a swarm of uncontrollable beasts hardly his usual fare. He'd been born after the old war and trained quickly.

Four days watching Gladiolus taught him more about self-preservation than years under the Empire's training regime ever had.

Daemons were hideous maws with gnashing teeth trying to rend his flesh from his bones, he'd rarely encountered them outside of the cages at the Keep, never seem them free roaming closer than them prowling at the edges of the grounds from the library window in Tenebrae and never had someone step in front of him with a shield, stopping a beast from digging it's filthy claws into his stomach.

And he found himself unable to move.

"Eyes OPEN!" Gladio shouted, pushing him further into the center of their circle.

  
His ears rang with the rattle of the machinery Prompto hefted around a much more familiar sound than the clash of steel and claws.

 

\--

 

"I'd like to apologize." Ravus said, his jacket in Ignis' lap, button being replaced. "For how I froze earlier, I'm afraid I'm unused to such savagery or I suppose -" He took a hard gulp, looking down at the hot cocoa in his hands. "-any sort of battle against an untamed beast."

"You'll get used to it," Gladio said, mouth half-full of meat. "We'll pick up your training, take up some hunts in the dustbowl, less money but you need the hours."

  
“And we can introduce you to Cindy!” Prompto said, smiling “She can probably get that weird clicking noise out of your elbow.”

  
Ignis paused in his chore, hand stopping mid-air.

  
“Ravus,” He said. “Exactly what do you mean by _untamed_?” Ignis set his look of concern on Ravus.

  
Ravus pulled his legs up a little, the hard stone suddenly unbearable. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  
"I think there's some things I need to tell you about the Empire." 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @ DeCerterus.tumblr.com to talk about Ravus


End file.
